m 
LA 339 
.N5 W5 
Copy 1 



CORRESPONDENCE 

BETWEEN 

William G. Willcox 

President of the Board of Education 
AND 

William H. Maxwell 

Superintendent of Schools 

REGARDING 
THE DUPLICATE SCHOOL PLAN 



Department of Education 

City of New York 

August 1917 



( » m> f ( <mj 4*»? / 

>tfsWs" 



0. o f D * 

NOV 10 191' 



A, 



<4» 

3 



THE CITY OF NEW YORK 

OFFICE OF 

THE CITY SUPERINTENDENT OF SCHOOLS 



25th May, 1917 
Dear Mr. Willcox: 

You may be interested in the enclosed copy of a letter which 
I am today forwarding to Governor Whitman. 
Respectfully yours, 

Wm. H. Maxwell, 

City Superintendent of Schools. 
Hon. William G. Willcox, 

President of the Board of Education. 

25th May, 1917 
Hon. Charles S. Whitman, 

Governor of The State of New York. 
Dear Sir: 

After mature consideration, I have reached the conclusion 
that it is my duty to ask you to veto Senate bill Int. No. 491 — 
the bill prepared by the State Department of Education to pro- 
vide a general law, under which the educational systems of the 
cities of our State may be administered. 

Notwithstanding what I believe to be the urgent necessity for 
a judicious revision and codification of our many city charter 
enactments regarding public education, I had at one time deter- 
mined to oppose this measure before the Committees on Education 
of the Senate and Assembly, because of its grave defects. I was 
induced to refrain from such opposition on the plea that, by a 
few clauses inserted in the final revision of the bill, it would 
remove what is probably the most serious impediment to the 
progress of public education in The City of New York — the 
subjection of the Board of Education to the Board of Estimate 
and Apportionment. On a careful examination of these clauses, 



however, I find that, in the all-important matters of supplying 
funds for the erection of school buildings and the purchase of 
school sites, the subjection of the educational to the financial 
authorities of the city continues. That this subjection has been 
a great evil, is only too completely demonstrated by the fact 
that the financial authorities have forced the educational 
authorities to introduce, without adequate preparation and with- 
out thorough adaptation to city needs, a plan of school-keeping 
devised in Gary, Indiana. There are in this plan some features 
which, if wisely guarded, would be of great service to our 
schools ; but, forced upon us as they have been, without due 
consideration and without adequate preparation, they have worked 
incalculable injury to the schools and to the children of this city. 
, The means by which this feat was accomplished was the 
simple but effective device of refusing money for the construc- 
tion, extension, or improvement of any school building unless 
it was to be operated on the Gary school plan. The opposition 
of the great mass of the people upon whom the Gary plan' has 
been inflicted is the most intense and widespread I have ever 
known in my long experience, toward any educational policy. 
The measure which is now before you for approval or dis- 
approval, leaves unimpaired the tyrannical power of the City 
Board of Estimate and Apportionment to control the school 
policy to be followed in any building for the erection of which 
it grants the money, and fastens the facilities for this political 
abuse of power indefinitely on New York City. 

I have said enough to show you that Senate bill Int. No. 491 
should not become a law. 

There are other objections, however, to the measure, almost 
equally potent, which may be briefly stated as follows : 

1. It not only perpetuates but extends and intensifies 
the second great evil from which the New York schools are 
suffering, namely, administering the educational policies of 
the Board of Education through a debating society— the 



Board of Superintendents — which produces hesitancy where 
firmness is required and fickleness where consistency is 
required, and which very thoroughly prevents the fixing of 
responsibility for such evils as the retention of inefficient 
teachers, advancement in salary for those who have not 
earned it by efficient service, and, especially by the injudicious 
selection, as the result of compromises between opposing 
opinions, of men and women for high positions such as those 
of District Superintendent and High School Principal. The 
difficulty is not that the selections are always bad, but that 
they are not always the best that might have been made. 

2. The language of the statute is loosely and carelessly 
constructed. The inevitable result will be protracted and 
vexatious litigation, from which the New York City schools 
have already suffered severely. 

The educational chapter of the New York Charter is far from 
being a perfect instrument, but it has been interpreted by the 
courts and its meaning settled, and consequently is very much 
superior to the proposed law. 

For these sufficient reasons, while I heartily believe in having 
our city school systems administered under a general law that 
shall be simple, wise, and unambiguous, I ask you to veto Senate 
bill Int. No. 491. 

With all respect, Sir, I remain 
Sincerely yours, 

Wm. H. Maxwell, 

City Superintendent of Schools. 



BOARD OP EDUCATION 

THE CITY OP NEW YORK 

OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT 

500 PARK AVENUE 

June 1st, 1917 

Dr. William H. Maxwell, 
City Superintendent of Schools, 
New York City. 
Dear Dr. Maxwell: 

I thank you for sending me a copy of your letter to Governor 
Whitman urging him to veto the State Educational Bill. I am 
glad that you decided to take this action, although I do not 
entirely agree with your reasons for doing so. 

I am quite in accord with your view that a Board of 
Superintendents is a bad form of organization (except that I am 
somewhat inclined to question whether any independent statutory 
powers granted by the Legislature may not be more safely 
entrusted to a group than to an individual), but I. do not agree 
with you that the Board of Education should be financially 
independent of the Board of Estimate and Apportionment, under 
the present organization of our municipal government. So long 
as the city administration is responsible to the tax payers for the 
total city budget, the Board of Estimate and Apportionment 
must have control over the entire expenditures of the city, and 
must exercise its judgment in passing upon the relative importance 
of the financial needs of all departments of civic activity and the 
ability of the city treasury to meet such demands. Unless the 
electorate is ready to establish a wholly independent branch of 
city government, such as would be represented by a Board of 
Education elected by the people and entrusted with a separate 
taxing power, the Board of Estimate and Apportionment, I 
believe, should retain the authority as well as the responsibility 
for determining the amount of expenditures for educational 
purposes. 



I wish to disabuse your mind, however, of any impression that 
the duplicate organization of elementary schools has been adopted 
wholly or mainly as a measure of economy. While members of 
the Board of Education have been impressed with the conviction 
that the traditional method of using the school plant is too 
extravagant for the financial resources of the city, and that the 
only practicable and comprehensive method of dealing with the 
part time problem lies in a more intensive use of the school 
buildings and equipment, they have been equally impressed with 
the belief that this form of organization is a very important 
improvement from an educational standpoint which should be 
introduced as a means of providing better schools for the children. 

This view is the result of the independent study and obser- 
vation of the individual members of the Board, and their judg- 
ment appears to be justified by the effect of the duplicate organi- 
zation in the schools in which it has had a fair trial. Naturally 
any such change meets opposition at the outset, especially during 
the inconvenience due to incomplete adjustment of building and 
equipment to the new organization, but I have yet to find a 
principal who has tried the plan for six months who is not 
enthusiastically in favor of it. 

I have not time now to discuss this matter further, but I do 
wish you to know that even if the Board of Education had 
complete financial independence and unlimited funds, it would 
nevertheless favor the extension of the duplicate organization 
of the elementary schools, since a majority of the members of 
the Board thoroughly believe in it from a purely educational 
standpoint. 

Very truly yours, 

William G. Willcox, 
President of the Board of Education. 



8 

THE CITY OP NEW YORK 

OFFICE OF 

THE CITY SUPERINTENDENT OF SCHOOLS 

4th June, 1917 
Dear Mr. Willcox: 

I have your letter of 1st June, with regard to my letter to 
Governor Whitman, urging him to veto the State education bill, 
and with regard to the duplicate organization of elementary 
schools. 

In reply I beg leave to say that, upon the question of the 
financial independence of the Board of Education, you seem to 
ignore the practically universal experience of the cities of the 
United States. Progress in education everywhere has gone hand 
in hand with the independence of the educational authorities. It 
is one of the axioms of school administration that the educational 
power should be separate and distinct from the political power 
in a municipality. If you have any doubt on this subject, I would 
ask you to examine results in Philadelphia, St. Louis, and, in our 
State, in Rochester, since financial independence was granted 
the educational authorities. 

I regret to see that you ignore entirely the results of pro- 
fessional investigation of the duplicate school plan, both in high 
schools and in elementary schools. Wherever it has been tried 
the scholarship of the pupils has been steadily impaired. The 
running expenses are very considerably larger than in schools 
organized on the old plan. Pupils do not remain as long in 
school. As to scholarship, the tests conducted by my direction 
by Mr. Buckingham demonstrated the impairment of scholarship. 
Subsequent tests, made since that time by a committee of District 
Superintendents acting quite independently, — proved the validity 
of the Buckingham report in every particular. 

With regard to high schools, if you will make a study of the 
results of the State examinations, you will find that, as each 
high school has become enlarged so as to have two separate 



schools in one building, the results of the examinations show 
steady deterioration in scholarship. 

It may be that we are doomed to endure the duplicate school 
plan for a considerable time longer. It may be that we must 
even suffer a still greater extension of the plan than is found 
today. At any rate, however, an attempt should at least be made 
to minimize its bad effects. This may be done to some extent by 
not permitting the organization of the duplicate school plan in 
any building that is not adequately prepared for it and for which 
a proper organization of the teaching force has not been made. 
Respectfully yours, 

Wm. H. Maxwell, 

City Superintendent of Schools. 

Hon. William G. Willcox, 

President of the Board of Education. 



10 

BOARD OF EDUCATION 

THE CITY OP NEW YORK 

OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT 

500 PARK AVENUE 

June 20th, 1917 
Dr. William H. Maxwell, 
City Superintendent of Schools, 
New York. 

Dear Sir: 

Other pressing demands upon my time have prevented an 
earlier reply to your letter of the 4th instant, with reference to 
your communication to Governor Whitman urging him to veto 
the State Educational Bill. In the meantime the bill has become 
a law, and there is little to be gained by the discussion of its 
provisions, whether we like them or not we must make the best 
of them. 

I should be willing and glad to see a competent Board of 
Education entrusted with financial independence, but in that case 
the Board of Estimate and Apportionment should be relieved 
of all responsibility for educational expenditures, the Board of 
Education being responsible directly to the tax payers. I do 
not think it fair or wise that the Board of Estimate and Appor- 
tionment while charged, as it now is, with responsibility for the 
entire city budget should be deprived of supervision and control 
over any portion of the expenditures. 

In regard to the duplicate school plan, it is quite too early, 
I think, to determine the results of this form of organization in 
its effect upon scholarship in academic subjects. The advocates 
of the plan claim that the interest of the pupils in all branches 
of school work is stimulated and quickened and that the scholar- 
ship in academic subjects is thereby improved; while those who 
oppose the duplicate form of organization claim that the academic 
scholarship is impaired. Both claims, I believe, are equally 
questionable and premature. As the time allotted to academic 



11 

subjects under the duplicate plan of organization is certainly no 
less and in most cases somewhat greater than the time allotted 
under the old plan, it seems hardly probable that the results in 
such academic subjects will be materially affected, but I do not 
anticipate that the plan can be successfully defended or opposed 
on the strength of such results. 

From an educational standpoint, the most important feature 
of the duplicate organization is the time and advantages afforded 
to pupils for the training of the senses, observation, imagination, 
manual dexterity and individual initiative and for the well 
rounded development of all the powers and faculties of the child*. 

Dr. Eliot says "The changes which ought to be made immedi- 
ately in the programmes of American secondary schools in order 
to correct the glaring deficiencies of the present programmes, 
are chiefly : — the introduction of more hand, ear, and eye work — 
such as drawing, carpentry, turning, music, sewing and cooking 
and the giving of much more time to the sciences of observation". 

If this is true of the secondary schools, it is doubly true of 
the elementary schools. You yourself must certainly agree with 
other progressive educators in regard to the value and importance 
of such extension of public school education. Indeed the im- 
portance of such advantages is so generally conceded that no one 
today would think of recommending the construction of any 
new school building without a playground, gymnasium, audi- 
torium, domestic science room, work shops and science labora- 
tories. When I asked the Board of Superintendents a year ago 
if they did not consider a duplicate school with these advantages 
a better school for the children, than a single session school 
without such advantages, there was not a dissenting voice in their 
affirmative answer. 

Disregarding for the moment all motives of economy, and 
even all the evils of part time and double sessions, and looking 
at the problem solely from the point of view of the best edu- 
cational advantages for the children, is it not true that every 



m 

school if possible should have a playground, a gymnasium, an 
auditorium, work shops, cooking kitchen and science laboratories, 
and is it npt equally -true that ^very pupil in the school should 
have the ; benefit. pi these advantages? And, if this be conceded, 
must we then confine these advantages to comparatively few new 
buildings, or shall we try to extend ,theni also. to the vast, number 
of children who must continue to use the hundreds of old 
buildings in the. city ■? 

The duplicate plan of organization was introduced #nd is 
being extended as a practicable method of supplying in some 
degree at least, throughput the school system, these advantages 
and opportunities which are so generally recognized as essential 
for the best welfare, of the children. It would be financially 
impossible to provide these advantages without such organiza- 
tion as should admit, of their constant use throughout the school 
day, but with such organization, and with the school day 
lengthened to six ; hours,. it is possible to eliminate part time and 
give every child the benefit of a full six hour day including 
these advantages, , in addition to the usual amount of academic 



I, quite agree with you that the running expenses under this 
plan may be larger than un,der the old plan of organization, but 
I am confident that any such increase will be amply justified in 
increased benefit to the school. children. I also agree , with you 
that the high school situation is serious and urgently demands 
consideration and action, but thus far we have proceeded upon 
the theory that the claims; of the, elementary schools should take 
precedence. 

I am writing #t length in the hope of disabusing your mind 
of any impression that the Board of Education , is introducing 
the duplicate organization as .a makeshift measure of economy. 
No such plan coujjd . Jiave secured the approval of the Board if 
the members had not sincerely, believed that it would also mean 
better schools for the , children .and thus far the results have 



served only to confirm and strengthen this conviction. Of course, 
a school should not be reorganized on the duplicate plan until 
the building and equipment are reasonably prepared for it nor 
until proper organization of the teaching force has been arranged, 
and I shall welcome your cooperation in this respect. 

The theory of the duplicate plan I believe to be sound and 
in accord with the most progressive educational ideas, but its 
application to old buildings in congested sections of the city 
naturally presents many difficult problems. During the transition 
period there must necessarily be more or less friction and dis- 
satisfaction, but I have yet to find a principal who has tried the 
plan for six months, who is not enthusiastically in favor of it. 
May I not hope that we shall now have the benefit of your co- 
operation and counsel in minimizing any disadvantages or diffi- 
culties in future? 

Under separate cover, I am sending you a copy of Dr. 
Eliot's "Changes Needed in American Secondary Education". 
If you have not already read it I am sure you will enjoy reading 
it. I believe most thoroughly in the principles of education 
wjhich he so forcibly expounds, and I am sure that you will 
share my hope that we may live to see these principles generally 
applied throughout the public schools of New York until the 
advantages and opportunities which he demands shall be extended 
to every pupil in the city. 

Very truly yotfrs, 

William G. Willcox, 
President of the Board of Education. 



14 

THE CITY OF NEW YORK 

OFFICE OF 

THE CITY SUPERINTENDENT OF SCHOOLS 

27th June, 1917 
Dear President Willcox: 

I have to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of 20th 
June, with regard to the duplicate school plan, together with a 
copy of President Eliot's pamphlet on "Changes Needed in 
American Secondary Education." 

You quote Dr. Eliot as saying: "Changes which ought to be 
made immediately in the programs of American secondary 
schools, in order to correct any deficiencies in the present pro- 
grams, are chiefly : — the introduction of more hand, ear, and eye 
work, such as drawing, carpentry, wood-turning, music, sewing, 
and cooking, and the giving of much more time to the sciences 
of observation." To this you add : "If this is true of the second- 
ary schools, it is doubly true of the elementary schools." 

Under your language the assumption seems to lie that I, as 
Superintendent of Schools, have not been fully in accord with 
President Eliot's dictum, and that I have been remiss in urging 
the teaching of hand and eye work and the "sciences of obser- 
vation." You will permit me to say that, had you made a more 
careful study of the history of the New York schools during 
the last thirty years, you would not have made this assumption. 
Years and years before Dr. Eliot started on his campaign to 
secure the giving of more time and attention to hand and eye 
work and the "sciences of observation" in secondary schools; 
years before he made his celebrated report as Chairman of the 
"Committee of Ten", in which there is scarcely any mention of 
manual training in secondary schools, I made a fight in Brooklyn 
to secure the establishment of the first manual training high 
school in Greater New York, — a school in which "drawing, car-' 
pentry, turning, music, sewing, and cooking" and "chemistry, 
physics, and biology" were taught from the start. When I 



15 

commenced that fight, I had the support of but one member of 
the Board of Education. It took three years to induce the 
Brooklyn Board of Education to give a majority in favor of 
establishing a manual training high school. It took three years 
more to obtain from the Board of Estimate and Apportionment 
a very small amount of money to make a beginning in the work. 
For a quarter of a century and more I have had to bear the brunt 
of the contest made by the Board of Estimate and Apportion- 
ment, at first of Brooklyn and then of Greater New York, and 
of many outside bodies, against the effort to secure manual 
training in the elementary and high schools and some teaching 
of the ''sciences of observation." When Comptroller Grout was 
in office and a member of the Board of Estimate and Apportion- 
ment, he led an attack in that body on what he was pleased to 
call the "fads and frills of the public schools that have been 
introduced by Superintendent Maxwell." For months I was 
obliged to make many public addresses and conduct many con- 
troversies in the press and in the Board of Education, to prevent 
the expulsion of the so-called "fads and frills" from the public 
schools. 

This public discussion served to win for me the support of 
many public spirited men and women in this community and in 
the country generally, with the result that the appropriations of 
the Board of Estimate and Apportionment yearly became more 
generous for the maintenance and extension of those activities 
in our schools which are now held up as the distinctive and 
desirable features of the duplicate school plan. For years past, 
in all elementary schools whose structures admitted of the 
necessary changes without great expense and within the limits 
of the appropriations made, there have been introduced kitchens, 
gymnasiums, workshops, playgrounds, baths, and, even in not 
a few instances, laboratories and auditoriums. You will see, 
then, that I cannot possibly be opposed to the extension of 
facilities for these studies in either elementary or high schools. 



16 

What I object to, in the campaign for the establishment of the 
duplicate school plan, may be summarized briefly as follows : 

1. The rapid extension of the plan to all schools, where- 
ever possible, before the merits of' the plan have been 
thoroughly tested : 

2. The utilization of public funds for structural changes 
in old buildings in old sections of the city, and of more 
funds for the purchase of the additional equipment required 
for the "new" activities, while sections of the population 
are without even a half-measure of school facilities under 
either the traditional plan or the new duplicate plan. 

3. The persistent urging, in support of the duplicate 
school plan, of arguments that assume as established facts, 
matters still undetermined. An instance of this occurs in 
your letter. While, on pages 1 and 2 you say: "It is quite 
too early, I think, to determine the results of this form of 
organization in its effect upon scholarship in academic 
subjects," on page 4 you say: "With such organization, and 
with the school day lengthened to six hours, it is possible to 
eliminate part-time and give every child the benefit of a full 
six-hour day, including these advantages, in addition to the 
usual amount of academic work," and again, on pages 4 and 
5. you say: "No such plan could have secured the approval 
of the Board if the members had not sincerely believed that 
it would also mean better schools for the children and thus 
far the results have served only to confirm and strengthen 
this conviction." 

Another instance in your letter is the assumption that, in the 
duplicate schools, more time is spent in the academic work and 
that "in most cases it is somewhat greater than the time allotted 
under the old plan." I characterize this as an assumption because 
it is a matter in dispute, involving the question of whether the 
periods spent in the auditorium and some other periods are to 
be regarded as time spent in academic work. 

I welcome all the facilities that the Board of Estimate and 
Apportionment will give us, in the shape of playgrounds, labor- 



17 

atories, and workshops, as I have always welcomed them; but I 
do not believe that it is sound public policy to leave the city, 
in many of its parts, without adequate elementary and high 
school accommodations. 

At various times, various reasons have been urged in support 
of the duplicate school plan. At first, it was the solution of the 
problem of vocational education. Next, it was the solution of the 
problem of congestion. And again, it was the solution of the 
academic problem. Now its advocates, in their public utter- 
ances, urge its educational advantages through "the enrichment 
of the school curriculum." 

The introduction of the duplicate school plan in schools and 
in districts where there is no present congestion, seems to indi- 
cate that the purpose is not to relieve congestion. On the other 
hand, the introduction of the duplicate school plan into many 
schools that have previously had such facilities as auditoriums, 
gymnasiums, science laboratories, kitchens, workshops, and play- 
grounds, seems to show that the purpose is not solely to enrich 
the curriculum. The plan seems to be the thing, whether the 
advantages claimed for it can accrue or not. 

Any school or system of schools or any method of teaching 
is to be judged, not by the criterion which you lay down, namely, 
the amount of time devoted to a given subject or the application 
of any specific method, but by the results in cultivating concen- 
tration of attention, accurate observation, just reasoning, and 
luminous expression. 

The extension of the duplicate school plan has been prosecuted 
with such vigor and persistence as to justify the belief that the 
Board of Estimate and Apportionment and the Board of Educa- 
tion intend to commit the city permanently to the adoption of 
the plan, by establishing it so firmly and investing in it so much 
money, that no future administration can displace it without a 
great disturbance to the school system, without a loss of the 



18 

heavy investment already made, and without a heavier new 
investment. 

I believe that the duplicate school plan should not be further 
extended until its merits have been proved, and that, in the mean- 
time, such public funds as can be spared for school purposes, 
should be directed to providing additional accommodations in the 
elementary and high schools, where needed. 

Respectfully yours, 

Wm. H. Maxwell, 

Superintendent of Schools. 

Hon. William G. Willcox, 

President of the Board of Education. 



19 

BOARD OF EDUCATION 

THE CITY OP NEW YORK 

OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT 

500 PARK AVENUE 

June 28th, 1917 

Dr. William H. Maxwell, 
City Superintendent of Schools, 
New York. 
My Dear Dr. Maxwell: 

I acknowledge receipt of your letter of the 27th instant with 
reference to the duplicate school plan. 

I did not intend, in my letter of the 20th, to imply that you 
had not been in accord with Dr. Eliot's views or that you had 
been remiss as Superintendent of Schools in urging the teaching 
of hand and eye work and the "sciences of observation." On 
the contrary, it was because I assumed that you were m full 
agreement with Dr. Eliot regarding the importance of such 
extension of educational opportunities as he advocates, that I 
ventured to point out your inconsistency in opposing a plan, the 
most important feature of which is the extension of the very 
facilities and activities which you yourself have advocated for 
many years past. 

Touching briefly upon your objections to the plan I reply: 

1. No test is necessary to prove the advantages of work- 
shops, playgrounds, gymnasiums, auditoriums and labor- 
atories. 

2. The Board is using public funds to provide additional 
accommodation and facilities where it finds the need most 
urgent and where the greatest number of children may enjoy 
the increased advantages. 

3. There is no inconsistency in the paragraphs quoted 
from my letter. Results measured in percentages in aca- 
demic subjects (as attempted in the discredited Buckingham 
report) are premature and untrustworthy, but results meas- 



20 

ured by the enthusiastic approval of superintendents who 
have most closely studied the working of the plan, of 
principals and teachers who have actually tried it in their 
schools (few of whom would' willingly go back to the old 
system), of parents who report increased interest on the part 
of their children, these are the results which have served 
to strengthen the conviction of the Board that the duplicate 
plan means better schools for the children. 

I sent a copy of my former letter to each member of the Board 
of Education, because I was to some degree assuming to speak 
on behalf of the Board and I thought it only proper to give other 
members of the Board an opportunity to take exception to my 
statements if they desired to do so. I have not the slightest 
objection to your sending members of the Board copies of your 
letter of the 27th instant, as you suggested, and I will also send 
them copies of this brief reply. I welcome the fullest discussion 
of the merits of the question. The more they are considered, 
the more impregnable I believe will the position of the Board of 
Education be found to be. 

Very truly yours, 

William G. Willcox, 
President of the Board of Education. 



21 

THE CITY OF NEW YORK 

OFFICE OF 

THE CITY SUPERINTENDENT OF SCHOOLS 

2nd July, 1917 
Dear Sir: 

I beg leave to make the following comments on your letter 
of 28th June, in reply to my letter of 27th June, with regard to 
the duplicate school plan. 

The first question which your letter raises is this : Is the 
Board of Education using public funds to provide additional 
accommodations and facilities where need is most urgent? You 
assert that, by making certain additions to old buildings, in order 
to introduce the duplicate school plan, it is so using money. I 
submit that the evidence at hand shows that this is not providing 
accommodations where the need is most urgent. I submit that, to 
build new elementary and high schools in localities which, in 
recent years, have increased enormously in population, but which 
are now almost bare of school accommodations, is incomparably 
more important than to provide opportunities for duplicating 
schools in old buildings where there is no great pressure on 
existing facilities. The financial power of the Board of Estimate 
and Apportionment is behind your plan. The will of the people, 
I have reason to believe, will eventually, if it does not already, 
support my plan. 

You claim that the Buckingham report, which showed that 
the Gary schools were not improving as rapidly as schools 
organized on the traditional plan or on the prevocational plan, 
has been "discredited". Discredited by whom? Only by those 
who are joined to the idols of Gary and who desire to be left 
alone with their delusions. The following excerpt from a letter 
written by Professor Edward L. Thorndike, of Teachers College, 
probably the highest authority in this country on educational 
statistics and their interpretation, will show you how a scientific 
thinker views that report: 



22 

"With respect to Dr. Buckingham's Survey of the Gary 
and Prevocational Schools, and the criticisms of it which 
have been made by Mr. Nudd, I am of the opinion that Dr. 
Buckingham's methods were chosen impartially and on 
grounds of scientific merit; and that, if the study were 
repeated on a larger scale and with other reasonable methods 
of weighting the data and measuring improvement, the 
results would not differ substantially from those reported by 
Dr. Buckingham. 

One could, of course, devise a great many reasonable 
methods for measuring improvement and for assigning 
weights per individual, per class and per school, in combining 
results in such a comparative study as this. The important 
thing is to choose your methods without prejudice and before 
you know their consequences, and then abide by the con- 
clusion. Then, the fact that you can, ex post facto, find some 
justifiable method that accentuates your result, or the fact 
that a critic can find some justifiable method that minimizes 
it, is of little importance." 

While admitting that the duplicate school plan is still on trial, 
most inconsistently (I must still claim that you are inconsistent, 
notwithstanding your disclaimer of inconsistency), you assert that 
the "enthusiastic approval" of superintendents, principals, and 
teachers who have tried the plan "strengthens the conviction of 
the Board that the duplicate plan means better schools for the 
children." Here I must raise a question as to the accuracy of 
your statement. After diligent inquiry, I have found but two 
out of thirty-five superintendents in our city who "enthusiastically 
approve" the duplicate school plan. The great majority, of whom 
I am one, regard it as an experiment whose absolute success or 
absolute failure remains to be demonstrated, though the weight 
of evidence supports an adverse judgment, or as a makeshift until 
the requisite money is provided for the necessary new buildings. 

As for the principals and teachers, the number of those who 
"enthusiastically approve" the duplicate school plan is so small 



23 

as to be almost undiscovera'ble, while, of those who are opposed 
to it, or who are still in doubt, their name is legion. 

This, my dear Sir, is an age of scientific measurement. 
Neither opinion nor enthusiasm can any longer be accepted as 
justification for educational theory. It will be a sorry day for 
the public schools, should boards of education, for any appreciable 
period, permit themselves to be swayed by the sophistries of 
interested advocates, or by the enthusiasm of those who are 
carried away by every wind of doctrine, or by the pressure of 
political authorities. 

Respectfully yours, 

Wm. H. Maxwell, 

Superintendent of Schools. 

Hon. William G. Willcox, 

President of the Board of Education. 



24 

BOARD OF EDUCATION 

THE CITY OP NEW YORK 

OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT 

500 PARK AVENUE 

July 9, 1917 
Dr. William H. Maxwell, 

Superintendent of Schools. 
Dear Sir: 

I do not know that anything is to be gained by prolonging our 
correspondence with reference to the duplicate schools. In con- 
clusion, however, I must point out that neither in your letter to 
Governor Whitman nor in your correspondence with me nor ih 
your statement before the Board of Education, have you pro- 
duced a single fact or a single definite concrete argument in 
support of your opposition to the extension of the advantages 
which the Board of Education is endeavoring to provide for 
elementary school children throughout the city. 

In your letter to Governor Whitman you say "There are in 
this plan some features which, if wisely guarded, would be of 
great service to our schools," and in your letter to me of June 
27th you explain at much length your own efforts for over a 
quarter of a century to introduce into the public schools of the 
city the very advantages which we are now widely extending 
through the medium of the duplicate schools, and say that you 
cannot possibly be opposed to the extension of such facilities as 
kitchens, gymnasiums, workshops, playgrounds, laboratories and 
auditoriums either in the elementary schools or high schools. 
So far apparently we are entirely in accord. 

While fully appreciating the desirability of these advantages, 
however, and advocating their extension as far as practicable 
throughout the school system, you apparently fear that the too 
rapid extension of such facilities may have a deleterious effect 
upon the work of the schools in academic subjects. As the time 
given to such subjects in the duplicate schools, even without the 



25 

auditorium period, is fully equal to that under the old form of 
organization, I can see no serious danger in this direction. I 
admit it is a point to be watched 1 and guarded in the future 
administration of the schools, but I cannot admit that the fear 
of such a result should be allowed to deter or delay the extension 
of the great advantages which the duplicate plan offers in other 
directions. 

I recall your remark that the results of the Washington Irving 
High School are "a tragedy," and I assume that you fear 
similar results in the duplicate schools. I protest, however, that 
the results achieved by a school should be measured not only in 
percentages in academic subjects, but also and especially in the 
character of power, initiative and independence, enthusiasm and 
inspiration developed in the pupils. Measuring in this way the 
results of the Washington Irving High School, parents of the 
pupils and many others who are familiar with the wonderful 
spirit that inspires that entire organization would, I believe, 
welcome more such tragedies in our public school system. 

As an indication of the effect of the duplicate plan in New 
York, even under the unfavorable conditions prevailing during 
adjustment, I enclose extracts from statements of some of the 
principals of schools in which the plan has been in operation for 
six months or more. 

Let me rehearse briefly the results to be secured by the 
expenditure of the $12,400,000. appropriated by the Board of 
Estimate and Apportionment during the past two years : 

1st: $6,000,000. is to be expended in the erection of 14 new 
buildings to accommodate 27,800 children, 7 in Brook- 
lyn, 3 in Queens, 2 in The Bronx, 1 in Manhattan and 
1 in Richmond. 

2d: Nearly $3,000,000. is to be expended for the erection 
of additions to existing buildings. 

3d: About $1,400,000. is to be expended for additional sites 
for playgrounds. 



26 

■ Jth: About $2,000,000. (less than one-sixth of the entire 
amount) is to be expended for alterations and equip- 
ment of existing buildings, to eliminate dark and un- 
sanitary rooms and to fit these buildings for duplicate 
school organization. 

The $6,400,000. thus to be expended for the improvement of 
existing schools will provide accommodations for about 58,000 
additional pupils, and will at the same time extend the new 
advantages thus provided to more than 200,000 pupils of these 
old buildings who would not be reached at all if the entire 
$12,400,000. were expended for new buildings. 

You claim in general terms that in the expenditure of these 
funds, the Board of Education is providing additional accom- 
modations and advantages in sections where they are not impera- 
tively needed and neglecting the more urgent demands of other 
sections of the city, but you give no specific instances in support 
of this criticism. The Board of Education has endeavored to 
give fair and impartial consideration to needs for further accom- 
modation in order of urgency based upon the number of pupils 
on part time and double session and the prospective growth. It 
is estimated that the expenditure of this $12,400,000. will provide 
accommodation for about 100,000 children heretofore on part 
time and double session, and also make provision for future 
growth to the extent of 35,000 more. As soon as the urgent 
necessities of the elementary school system are thus relieved, the 
Board of Education and the Board of Estimate and Apportion- 
ment will, I believe, be quite prepared to consider and deal with 
the needs of the high schools, which are only second to those of 
the elementary schools in urgency and importance. 

In this broad comprehensive plan, it is quite possible that 
some mistakes have been made and will be made, but all of the 
steps taken by the Board of Education thus far in the expenditure 
of these funds have, I believe, received the unanimous approval 
of the Board of Superintendents, and the Board of Superin- 



27 

tendents is to have ample opportunity to pass upon the details 
of the expenditure of the new appropriation in advance of any 
definite commitments. 

Very truly yours, 

William G. Willcox, 

President, Board of Education. 



Enclosures. 



ENCLOSURES. 



Brief Extracts From Statements of Principals With 
Reference to Duplicate School Plan. 

1. I wish to continue it next year because of the benefit to 
the children. They are so much happier, so much more 
interested and successful in regular work. The teachers 
like it very much. 

2. (On duplicate plan two months). The plan much better 
for the children. I don't want to go back to the old 
plan. The chance of moving at the end of the period, 
giving the children an opportunity to stretch and exer- 
cise, is a great advantage. They are fresher in mind 
and body. 

3. (On duplicate plan two months). The new plan offers 
undoubted advantages to the children. 

4. (On duplicate plan two months). Neither teachers nor 
I would go back to the old line school unless we were 
ordered. There is no question about the superiority of 
the system at all points. 

5. (On duplicate plan two months). I would not go back 
to the old plan under any circumstances unless I was 



28 

compelled to. The auditorium exercises supply a cor- 
relative force we never had before ; it utilizes talents of 
the teachers that are restricted in the classroom. It 
gives the children the handwork for which they hunger. 
The playroom is a necessity for City children. I have 
not heard a word of complaint from a parent. The 
children are enthusiastic for it. 

6. (On duplicate plan for two months). I don't know what 
the scholastic result will be. It takes three promotions 
to find out, but if it fell 5% or 10% I should still want 
the duplicate plan because of the greater giving of happi- 
ness to the children, the greater amount of handwork, 
of play, etc. 

7. I would not want to go back to the old scheme. Our 
parents like the scheme. When they extended my district 
the new parents came to raise a great row about the 
Gary system, wanted their children transferred to a 
non-Gary school, and could not tell what they objected 
to. They simply would not want to go back now. 

8. Children find their aptitudes; are helped to succeed in 
life. I have been able to advance pupils without the 
lock step; I have promoted when ready; lots of indi- 
vidual programmes adapted to the needs of the pupils. 

9. If I had room to turn around I would prefer the dupli- 
cate plan to the old plan ; opportunities for special work 
for children who could not otherwise have it. The chil- 
dren 4° so much better ; they get more shop ; the whole 
scheme seems to be better for the children. 

10. Pupils who do well in an ordinary school do much better 
on the duplicate plan. 



29 

11. There are various ways of answering why I think the 
duplicate plan the best. Private philanthropy is devising 
improved schools for specially favored children; more 
freedom, more out-of-door play, swimming, mastery of 
tools, variety. This plan aims to give to all the children 
these advantages ; is greatly superior to the old line plan, 
and after four months of it I am heartily in favor of it. 

12. This plan is the finest thing for the children that ever 
happened. They are getting good things they never had 
before ; constructive work. 

13. The duplicate plan is undeniably a better thing for the 
children. It is more businesslike ; it is much more 
productive. 

14. Cannot compare the advantages of the old plan with the 
new. I don't want the old plan ever again. 



30 

THE ADAMS PLACE 
POMPTON LAKES, NEW JERSEY 

July 12, 1917 

Hon. William G. Willcox, 
President, Board of Education, 
New York City. 
Dear Sir: 

Your letter of July 9 has been forwarded to me at this 
sanatorium. 

You begin by saying: "I do not know that anything is to be 
gained by prolonging our correspondence with reference to the 
duplicate schools." At least in this judgment I am almost con- 
strained to agree with you. I entered upon the correspondence 
in the hope of dispelling from your mind the delusions under 
which I believed you to be suffering. I use the word "delusions" 
advisedly. Your reputation as a business man and as a philanthro- 
pist stands too high, to permit me to think that you would advo- 
cate a measure no matter how unsalutary unless you believed it to 
be salutary. This last letter of yours, however, proves how vain 
has been my hope. Nevertheless, in the belief that your innate 
intelligence and love of truth will one day burst the bonds in 
which you are now enmeshed, I shall continue to point out your 
errors and to set forth the truth. 

You proceed: "I must point out that neither in your letter 
to Governor Whitman nor in your correspondence with me nor 
in your statement before the Board of Education have you pro- 
duced a single definite concrete argument in support of your 
opposition to the extension of the advantages which the Board 
of Education is endeavoring to provide for elementary school 
children throughout the city." In the first place you will permit 
me to point out that this sentence is a fine example of that kind 
of fallacy with which men have been accustomed in all ages <■ 
delude themselves and to deceive others — "begging the question" 



31 

— assuming in one of the premises of your syllogism the con- 
clusion which you desire to reach. You assume, after admitting 
as you did in your first letter, that the Gary or duplicate school 
plan is still on trial or in other words that it is not yet proved 
to be a good thing, that it has advantages which would be for 
the benefit of all the children of the city. This is the very point 
at issue. I, on the other hand, take the ground that these "ad- 
vantages" are not yet demonstrated, and that until they are 
demonstrated, and until we see whether we cannot improve upon 
its present form, this plan should not be extended. 

I do not know just what you mean by a "concrete argument" 
which you say I have not used. Therefore I am unable either 
to admit or to deny your statement. When, however, you say I 
have not "produced a single fact," I must take issue with" you 
very sharply. You will permit me to refresh your recollection. 
I stated that there are three localities in the Bronx so urgently 
in need of new elementary school accommodations that no amount 
of "Garyizing" or "duplicating" existing schools will satisfy the 
demand of the people. Mr. President, is that statement a fact? 
I stated that school No. 54 in Brooklyn is an old building which 
should be replaced by a new building on a neighbouring site 
purchased for that purpose, and that to spend money in Garyizing 
a new modern building some blocks distant, will not satisfy the 
just demands of the people who in lieu of something better send 
their children to No. 54. Mr. President, is that, or is it not, a 
fact? I stated that P. S. 140, Brooklyn, is now and has always 
been, a school for girls in a comparatively modern and well 
equipped and not over crowded building and that to spend money 
to "Garyize" that school is to divert funds which might be more 
profitably employed. Mr. President, are these facts or are they 
not? I stated that our high school accommodations, in propor- 
tion to our number of high school students — 39,000 sittings for 
69,000 students — are less ample than those provided by any 
other city in the State? Is that a statement of fact, Mr. Presi- 



32 

dent? Thrown into syllogistic form, the argument would run 
thus : The more necessary buildings should be erected before 
the less necessary; the buildings mentioned above are the more 
necessary; therefore, they should be erected before the less 
necessary. Is that what you mean by a concrete argument? I 
do not know, but I do know that it is a valid syllogism. In dis- 
posing of your assertion about a concrete argument I have also 
disposed of your statement that I have not "produced a single 
fact in support etc." 

In the concourse of your letter you take occasion to comment 
upon the language I used in a private conversation with yourself. 
I do not object to your quoting a private conversation nor even 
to your commenting thereon, though of course as a gentleman 
you are aware that it is not usual to comment in public — I assume 
that you will give your letter to the press — on private conversa- 
tions; but I do object to your quoting me incorrectly. You say, 
"I recall your remark that the results of the Washington Irving 
High School are 'a tragedy.' " In so saying you misrepresent 
me, because what I said referred to the Washington Irving High 
School under its former management not to the Washington 
Irving High School under its present principal, Mr. Zabriskie. If 
I were asked to give a good illustration of how much a strong, 
conscientious principal can accomplish in a large school in a 
short time, I should have no hesitation in pointing to the work 
of Mr. Zabriskie in that school. If you examined the matter 
closely you would find that "character and power, initiative and 
independence" have certainly not decreased — they were not 
strongly in evidence under the former management — while the 
humbler but all important school virtues of quietness, truthful- 
ness, industry, accuracy, and honesty, have been strongly devel- 
oped. It is no longer a matter of almost daily occurrence, to have 
a young woman come to the Superintendent to tell him how her 
aim in going to high school had been ship-wrecked because the 
Washington Irving High School did not fulfill the promises it 



33 

held out to its pupils. If that school no longer enjoys the 
melancholy distinction it had attained for several years in being 
recorded as the high school deserted by the largest number of it's 
students each year before graduating, it is because of the changes 
wrought by its present principal. In its present condition, were 
it not for its overcrowding, the school would measurably realize 
the ideal I had formed when I planned it in 1902. 

It shows, however, Mr. President, how hard up you were for 
an argument when your memory served you this fatal trick of 
recalling a fragment of a private conversation, and recalling it 
wrong. 

In the absence of official documents from my temporary 
residence I am unable to comment upon your statement of the 
objects for which moneys appropriated are to be expended. I 
shall take an early opportunity, however, of looking into the facts. 
You say that "all of the steps taken by the Board of Education 
thus far in the expenditure of these funds have received the 
unanimous approval of the Board of Superintendents." What 
the Board of Superintendents may have done during my pro- 
longed absence I cannot either affirm or deny, but I know that 
the Board of Superintendents was opposed by a large majority 
to the last report adopted by the Board of Education for ex- 
pending money for Garyizing existing schools. Mr. Meleney and 
Mr. Shallow were delegated by the Board to submit its views in 
opposition to the joint committee which prepared the final draft 
of that report. They reported that not the slightest attention was 
paid to their arguments or suggestions ; that most of the proposals 
to Garyize schools emanated not from any educational source 
but from Mrs. Ford who represented the Comptroller's Office; 
and that every one of these proposals was voted through despite 
their protests. This procedure does not argue much success for 
your statement that "the Board of Superintendents is to have 
ample opportunity to pass upon the details of the expenditure of 
the new appropriation in advance of any definite commitments." 



34 

In the absence of official documents I do not venture to impugn 
the accuracy of this statement further than to say that it is in 
conflict with my recollection. 

You conclude your letter by quoting a number of laudatory 
remarks made by principals on the duplicate school plan. Did 
it not strike you, Mr. President, that these remarks are in 
practically every instance only slight adaptations or paraphrases 
of phrases culled from the two or three prominent defenders of 
the Gary plan ? I should greatly like to crossexamine the gentle- 
men who made these statements. Permit me, however, to quote 
a couple of sentences from a letter I received yesterday from 
one of our ablest women principals : 

"After entering one of these free-for-all circuses called a 
duplicate school the children have little opportunity to learn 
anything exact. My own reading of the Buckingham results is 
that whatever they proved the children to know was learnecT m 
the regular schools, and that the difference in the marks was a 
measure of the pupils' deterioration in the turmoil of a Garyized 
study program." I venture to think that this is a more correct 
statement of the views of the great majority of our principals 
than the statements you quote. 

To my mind nothing betrays the weakness of the Gary position 
more clearly than the manner in which its defenders have shifted 
the grounds of their defense, as these grounds became untenable 
or unpopular. When it was first proposed to introduce it into 
New York, the plea was that it presented wonderful opportuni- 
ties for vocational training. When the hollowness of that plea 
was exposed through their plan's manifest failure to produce 
the desired results, its advocates shifted their ground to the plea 
that by the duplicate school plan they could save the city enormous 
sums of money by making old buildings accommodate double the 
number of children and thus avoiding the necessity of purchasing 
new sites and erecting new buildings. When it was perceived 
that the people continued to demand new buildings, its advocates 



35 

resorted to the plea which you use so forcibly — that by providing 
more workshops, laboratories, and playgrounds, larger opportuni- 
ties for hand-training and eye-training would be afforded. And 
now you wonder why I, who have for years advocated the 
extension of such facilities, do not advocate the duplicate school 
plan which does in a measure provide them. In your letter, 
however, you absolutely misstate my position. You say: "You 
apparently fear that the too rapid extension of such facilities 
may have a deleterious effect upon the work of the schools in 
academic subjects." Nothing could be farther from the 
truth. It is not the extension of the facilities for hand and 
eye work that I fear may injure the work of the schools in 
reading, writing, spelling, arithmetic, grammar, geography, and 
history, but it is the inherent weakness of the Gary or duplicate 
school plan itself. That inherent weakness is that the children 
who are not reciting in class are either being mentally bored and 
wearied in the auditorium or physically tired out in the gym- 
nasium or playground and so rendered unfit for the ordinary 
work of the class room. Add to this the confusion of constant 
changing of large bodies of pupils from place to place, and you 
may faintly imagine how far a duplicate school is from that ideal 
of the "Calm air of delightful studies" which Milton fixed for 
all times in the minds of English-speaking peoples as the ideal 
home of mental training. Why, I have seen a duplicate school 
time schedule in which one of the higher grades did not have an 
opportunity to recite in any purely intellectual subject until after 
two o'clock in the afternoon and after the force of mind and the 
force of body had been worn out by uninteresting, time consuming 
occupations or incessant play. For, Sir, strange as it may seem, 
children do get bored by uninteresting things such as stupid audi- 
torium exercises in which they have to sit still for an hour and 
do get wearied by an excessive amount of time given over to 
directed play. It is for this reason, not because they provide 
larger opportunities for hand work and eye work that I fear 



36 

the academic work is suffering, as it has been almost demon- 
strated it is, in the duplicate schools. Yet it is proficiency in 
reading, writing, and arithmetic and kindred branches, that the 
people, your masters and mine, demand from us. For precisely 
the same reason I fear that the hand and eye work, even with 
increased facilities and increased time, is suffering in the duplicate 
plan schools. There is already too much reason to fear that 
such is the case. I shall be better able, however, to speak with 
authority on this subject after I have concluded the investigation 
of the Garyized schools which the Board of Education has 
directed me to make. 

It is just possible that if proper rest rooms and appliances were 
provided, the inherent weakness of the duplicate school plan 
might be at least partially removed; but so far is the great and 
manifest truth, that children require physical and mental rest 
quite as much as, or even more than, exercise, absent from the 
thought of present day so called school reformers, that none of 
them has ever offered the suggestion. 

This letter is already too long but I cannot conclude without 
again expressing the hope that you will use your great influence 
to call a halt in the frenzied efforts of the present city administra- 
tion to save money for other purposes by Garyizing existing 
schools and not erecting a sufficient number of new buildings — 
both high schools and elementary schools — to meet the demands 
of the people. 

Very respectfully yours, 

Wm. H. Maxwell, 

Superintendent of Schools. 



37 

BOARD OF EDUCATION 

THE CITY OP NEW YORK 

OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT 

500 PARK AVENUE 

July 20th, 1917 

Dr. William H. Maxwell, 
City Superintendent of Schools, 
New York City. 
My Dear Dr. Maxwell: 

In replying to your letter of the 12th instant, I must first 
take serious exception to the character of this communication. 
It is neither fitting nor seemly that you, a subordinate of the 
Board of Education, should address such a letter to its President. 

I do not propose to discuss the merits of the duplicate school 
plan from a personal standpoint, but I cannot permit you to take 
refuge in the personalities in which your latest letter abounds. 
Neither my opinion nor yours is important except as it affects the 
welfare of the children of the city ; neither my opinion nor yours 
is entitled to carry much weight except as it is supported by fact 
and sound argument. You have no more right to characterize my 
views as "delusions" because you do not agree with them, than 
I have to apply the same epithet to your views. I hope we are 
both sincerely searching for truth and not merely trying to defend 
preconceived opinions. My mind is entirely open to consider 
facts and arguments, but the mere assertion of your unsupported 
opinions can hardly be expected to affect my judgment or con- 
clusions. 

If we are to continue the discussion, let us avoid personalities 
and deal with the matter on a basis of logical argument. 

You recognize and admit the need for further school accom- 
modations to abolish the evils of part time and double session, 
and you also recognize and admit the value and importance of 
providing playgrounds, gymnasiums, kitchens, auditoriums, 



38 

science laboratories, workshops and similar advantages for ele- 
mentary school children. 

That a given amount of money will provide such accommoda- 
tions and advantages for a much larger number of children under 
the duplicate plan of organization than under the traditional plan, 
is a mere matter of figures which requires no argument. You 
claim, however, in substance that the disadvantages of the 
duplicate plan are so serious that the city should spend more 
than double the amount required to provide such accommoda- 
tions and advantages under the duplicate plan, in order to continue 
the traditional plan of a reserved classroom seat for every pupil. 

In such a contention the burden of proof rests upon you to 
show affirmatively that a plan which on its face promises such 
great economy for the city and at the same time such advantages 
for the school children, is so defective that it should not be 
adopted. 

Your opposition to the duplicate plan, as I understand it, is 
based upon the assumption or fear that it will have an unfortu- 
nate effect upon education in academic subjects. When, however, 
I protest that you have produced no facts in support of your 
opposition, you specify the following: 

First : — That "there are three localities in the Bronx so urgently 
in need of new elementary school accommodations that no 
amount of 'Garyizing' or 'duplicating' existing schools will 
satisfy the demands of the people". 

Second: — "That school No. 54, Brooklyn, is an old building which 
should be replaced by a new building on a neighboring site 
purchased for that purpose". 

Third : — "That Public School 140, Brooklyn, is a comparatively 
modern and well equipped and not over-crowded building 
and that to spend money to 'Garyize' that school is to divert 
funds which might be more profitably employed". 

Fourth : — That the high schools are in urgent need of additional 
accommodation. 



39 

In making these statements you apparently overlook the 
following facts : 

First :_ That provision has already been made for two new buildings 
in the Bronx. 

Second: — That provision has already been made for a new Public 
School 54, Brooklyn, on the site owned by the city between 
Nostrand Avenue and Sandford Street. 

Third : — That while Public School 140, Brooklyn, is not overcrowded 
there are more than a thousand children on double session 
in Public School 118 which adjoins Public School 140. 

Fourth: — That $1,300,000. has been appropriated during the past two 
years for increasing high school accommodations. 

Surely you must yourself recognize, however, that even if 
your statements were accurate they are entirely irrelevant and 
have no possible bearing upon the principle of the duplicate 
school; they merely involve issues of opinion and judgment as 
to its application. Even with the duplicate plan of organization, 
we must of course continue to build new buildings, to discard old 
buildings and to provide increased accommodation for high 
schools. If you admit that you have produced no other facts than 
these upon which to base your opposition, you fully justify my 
criticism of your argument in this respect. 

I do not think that the Board of Superintendents is opposed 
to the principle of the duplicate school ; on the contrary, I believe 
that a majority, if not all of the Associate Superintendents 
approve and believe in a duplicate plan of organization. Natur- 
ally there are differences of opinion in regard to the details of 
the application of the principle and in regard to the relative needs 
of various sections of the city. Mr. Meleney told me emphatically 
in connection with the last appropriation made by the Board of 
Estimate and Apportionment, that he did not wish to be con- 
sidered in opposition to the duplicate plan but only in regard to 



some items of the proposed program for the expenditure of this 
appropriation, and that he was entirely willing to approve the 
general plan with the understanding that criticisms and sugges- 
tions of the Board of Superintendents in regard to certain 
specific features should receive subsequent consideration. This 
I believe fairly represents the view of the Board of Superin- 
tendents. 

I have before me a copy of the recommendations of the Board 
of Superintendents in connection with plans for the new public 
school 135, Brooklyn. These recommendations include an audi- 
torium, gymnasium, two boys' shops, one domestic science room, 
one sewing room, one music room, one study room, two kinder- 
garten rooms, one ungraded classroom, one open-air classroom, 
one science room, one nature study classroom, one drawing room 
and thirty regular classrooms. There is no difference of opinion 
as to the importance of such advantages as are thus recommended. 
The fundamental question at issue is whether such a school 
should be used for only thirty classes, half of the school plant 
remaining vacant while the other half is occupied, or whether 
all departments of the school should be used during the entire 
school day. 

I am interested in your suggestion that we in New York may 
be able to improve upon the Gary plan of duplicate organization. 
As I have repeatedly stated, the Board of Education is not 
attempting to impose any hard and fast form of organization 
for the duplicate schools. It is merely providing increased accom- 
modations and advantages and asking that the schools be so 
organized and administered that all of these opportunities shall 
be used during the entire school day. It will gladly welcome any 
improvements of the Gary plan of organization. 

There was nothing private about the conversation in which 
you stated to me that the results of the Washington Irving High 
School were a "tragedy". On the contrary, I considered it merely 
an expression of your well understood attitude toward that 



41 

school under its former management. I called attention to the 
incident for the reason that at the time you made this remark 
the Washington Irving High School was the best example in 
New York of a duplicate school. The criticisms which you made 
of the results of that school a few years ago were founded, i 
believe, on the same basis as the criticism which you now make 
of the so-called Gary schools. The fact that the Washington 
Irving School has made good and is now generally recognized 
as one of the very finest schools in the city, is certainly a strong 
argument in support of the duplicate school principle and affords 
good reason to hope that your fears for the results of the duplicate 
elementary schools will prove as unfounded as were your fears 
for the results of the Washington Irving High School. 

Permit me to add that your statement that if the Washington 
Irving High School "no longer enjoys the melancholy distinction 
it had attained for several years in being recorded as the high 
school deserted by the largest number of its students each year 
before graduating, it is because of the changes wrought by its 
present principal" does not seem to be borne out by the figures 
contained in your own annual reports. An inspection of these 
documents for the years 1905-1914 inclusive (statistics of this 
nature being available for the first time in 1905 and 1914 marking 
the end of the administration of the principal you criticize), 
discloses not a single year in which the Washington Irving had 
the highest percentage of pupils leaving school without gradua- 
tion. For the year 1914, (the last year before the change of 
principal) your report, page 99, shows the following percentages 
of pupils leaving the various high schools of the city without 
graduation : 

Julia Richman ... 66% 

Evander Childs 52% 

Commerce _ . 39% 

Richmond Hill 38% 

Bush wick 35 % 

Manual Training..... 34% 



42 

DeWitt Clinton .. 34% 

Commercial 33 % 

Far Rockaway. 30% 

Bay Ridge 28% 

Jamaica * 28% 

Bryant . 28% 

Curtis ...27% 

Wadleigh 26% 

Flushing «. 26% 

Eastern District 24% 

Stuyvesant 24% 

Morris 23% 

Wash ington I r ving. 23 % 

In spite of all your opposition the school became so popular 
that the number of pupils increased out of all proportion to the 
increase in population of that section of the city, as will appear 
from the following figures: 



1903 






1904... 


.2184 ' 






1905 


21 25 ' 






1906.... 


..... ..2058 ' 






1907... 


2059 ' 






1908 


.2408 * 






1909.... 


. ,... .„ ..... ...3080 






1910 


.,.. ..-..3736 ' 




1911... 


.4447 






1912.... 


5248 ' 






1913.... 


..5873 " 


(1337 transferred 
out as nucleus 
of a new high 








school) 



1914... 5657 " 

In 1914, as you will remember, the ratings of ten Washington 
Irving graduates selected alphabetically from each of the four 
classes of the Training School for Teachers, were compared with 
the ratings of a similar group of forty graduates of other high 
schools of the city with the following results : 



43 

Total ratings above B in any subject — 

Washington Irving High School 80 

Other schools 70 

Total ratings below B in any subject — 

Washington Irving High School „ 14 

Other schools 26 

On June 15, 1914, Mr. Hendrick, Acting Principal of the Train- 
ing School, wrote : 

"By our teachers the Washington Irving graduates are ranked 
with the best in industry, response, initiative, reliability, independent 
work and promise of successful teaching. I have especially noted 
the facility with which the Washington Irving girls do things. I 
congratulate their high school teachers on the success of their 
training." 

On October 23d of the same year, the Principal of the Training 

School reported that — 

"Washington Irving High School girls are well prepared, possess 
initiative not generally shown by other students and are exception- 
ally well qualified." 

You will note that all of these records refer to results during 
the period of "melancholy distinction" under the former manage- 
ment. 

I fully share your solicitude for proficiency in reading, writ- 
ing, arithmetic and kindred branches. I am mortified to find how 
much basis there is for the wide-spread criticism of the results 
achieved by the traditional schools in these directions. I have 
just received a letter from the Vice President of an important 
industrial corporation who states that "there were received in the 
accounting department of this company during the six months 
ended June 30th this year, 193 applications from public school 
graduates and that of this number 95 were rejected principally 
because of poor penmanship and inability to perform simple 
arithmetical problems". I have also received from one of the 



44 

leading banks of the city, the following report of a spelling test 
given a first year high school boy who applied for a position in 
that bank : — "releave, deceive, believe, sive, infimation, retrubition, 
constonation". "Now is a profishous time for you to consurve 
your resosous". 

It was on the strength of a large mass of such testimony as 
this that the Committee on Commercial Education of the Chamber 
of Commerce reported a wide-spread opinion that a large pro- 
portion of public school graduates "are deficient in practical 
working knowledge of fundamental subjects such as reading, 
writing, spelling and grammatical construction of the English 
language, arithmetic and geography ; that their education consists 
largely of a smattering of superficial knowledge without the 
power of clear definite thought and expression and that they 
lack appreciation of the importance of thoroughness, exactness, 
earnestness and perseverance". 

If the academic results of the traditional schools were satis- 
factory there would be some justification for your apprehension, 
but these results are so unsatisfactory that the traditional schools 
themselves are on the defensive today and there is less danger 
therefore of deterioration and greater possibility of improvement 
as the result of such changes as are introduced under the dupli- 
cate plan. 

In your last letter you describe what you call the inherent 
weakness of the Gary or duplicate school plan as follows : "That 
inherent weakness is that the children who are not reciting in class 
are either being mentally bored and wearied in the auditorium 
or physically tired out in the gymnasium or playground, and so 
rendered unfit for the ordinary work of the classroom". If 
you really fear such a result from auditorium exercises and 
physical training, your experience with children must have been 
far different from mine. I believe, on the contrary, that such 
variety in their school activities is an inherent advantage of the 
duplicate plan which adds increased interest and zest to their 



45 

entire school work. If the auditorium period is not interesting 
and stimulating- the fault lies with the teaching and not with the 
system. It is hardly worth while, however, to discuss imaginary 
results, for in addition to the testimony already sent you from 
principals who have actually tried the duplicate plan in our New 
York schools, we have also the following statements from neigh- 
boring cities : 

The President of the Board of Education of Troy states : 

"We have tried t'he Gary plan here for two and one-half years, 
and are absolutely and unqualifiedly for it. The Board were 
unanimous on the question. The plan has done wonders for our 
community. It has given our children a richer programme of 
school opportunities". 

And the Superintendent adds: 

"We have recommended the Gary plan, not as an economy 
measure but as giving the children a richer school life. The 
children have done better in Regents examinations than under the 
old plan". 

From the Superintendent in Newark comes the report : 

"Our experiment with this plan has proven highly satisfactory. 
We started a year and half ago with one school, added two within 
the year, and have just approved by the Board of Education an 
appropriation for Garyizing four more of our existing elementary 
schools". 

"The spirit of the teachers and children is splendid ; they are 
more interested in education than ever before". 

"The teachers like the plan, the children are delighted with it, 
and the parents approve it after they know what it is". 

Reports from Pittsburg are equally enthusiastic: 

"The children show better results than they did under the 
old plan". 

"The children are not so badly bored by monotony, and teachers 
working on specialties are fresher, more interested and less tiring". 

"I am in charge of two schools, one on the duplicate plan and 
the other on the old plan. The old line school is of the lower 



46 

grades, and promotes into the duplicate school. We thus have in 
our yearly classes children who come from the duplicate school 
and from the old line school. The teacher remarks a greater power 
and independence, thinking ability and initiative possessed by th>e 
children of the duplicate school. The new plan is very much better 
for the younger children; they are less restless and fidgety". 

In opposition to such testimony as this, in opposition to the 
almost unanimous opinion of the principals of the twenty-three 
duplicate schools in New York and of the Superintendents most 
closely in touch with their work, in opposition to the judgment of 
a large majority of the members of the Board of Education who 
have been studying the problem during the past three years, 
and notwithstanding your very imperfect knowledge of what 
has occurred during your prolonged absence, and without, I 
believe, ever having visited one of our duplicate schools since 
your return, you ask me to accept your individual opinion sup- 
ported by neither evidence nor arguments which could be seriously 
entertained by any impartial judge. 

You are in error in stating that the Board of Education has 
directed you to make an investigation of the duplicate schools. 
The Board would welcome any fair and impartial investigation, 
but in announcing your judgment in advance you have obviously 
disqualified yourself to command confidence in the fairness or 
impartiality of any investigation conducted by you. You of 
course have power under the law to make such investigation on 
your own initiative, and I hope that you will take such steps as 
are necessary to inform yourself thoroughly in regard to the 
whole situation with the object not of justifying your own 
position, but of ascertaining actual conditions and plans. Until 
you have done this, I see no object in continuing the discussion, 
but after you have thus familiarized yourself with the subject, 
I shall be glad to give careful consideration to any recommenda- 
tions from you for the modification of our proposed program. 

In the meantime let me remind you that the Board of Educa- 



47 

tion has definitely adopted the policy of a duplicate plan of 
school organization, and expects the loyal co-operation of all of 
its employees in carrying out this policy. 

Very truly yours, 

William G. Willcox, 
President of the Board of Education. 



48 

THE CITY OF NEW YORK 

OFFICE OF 

THE SUPERINTENDENT OF SCHOOLS 

1st August, 1917 

Dear Sir: 

In your letter of 20th July, answering my letter of 12th July, 
you write as follows : "It is neither fitting nor seemly that you, 
a subordinate of the Board of Education, should address such a 
letter to its President." 

On reading over my letter of 12th July, I beg leave to say 
that I find nothing in it to retract, except the statement that the 
Board of Education had directed the Superintendent of Schools 
to investigate the work of the duplicate schools. My error was 
due to the confusion attending a meeting of the Board of Educa- 
tion, when Commissioner Keller had his resolution to that effect 
laid over, when I supposed it had been passed. 

As to whether my letter of 12th July, written to disabuse your 
mind of certain opinions, since you object to the word "delusions", 
contains matter that is unseemly, I leave it to a discerning public 
to determine. To enable the public to reach a just decision, it is 
pertinent to state that, in this controversy, you are the aggressor. 
I had written a letter to Governor Whitman, asking him to veto 
the bill changing the educational system of New York City, among 
other things reducing the Board of Education from forty-six 
to seven members. You saw fit to write me a letter criticising my 
argument to the Governor. Naturally, I replied. Surely it is 
the part of him who makes the attack to "play the game" and not 
to attempt to wrap himself in an armor of official dignity against 
which he calls it "unfitting" and "unseemly" to use the tmie- 
honored weapons of controversy. You will permit me to inform 
you, however, Sir, that your fears, as far as I am concerned, are 
groundless. No one can impair the dignity of the President of 
the Board of Education except the incumbent of that high office. 



49 

As to the other matters embraced in your letter, I find some 
statements that require comment. You say, for instance: "In 
such a contention the burden of proof rests upon you (me) to 
show affirmatively that a plan which, on its face, promises such 
great economy for the city and at the same time such advantages 
for the school children, is so defective that it should not be 
adopted." According to this theory, we should adopt any plan 
of education that "promises" to cost less and do more for the 
school children, and set aside in its favor the established order 
of school-keeping and school teaching. Probably since the days 
of De Witt Clinton, no responsible school officer ever made a 
more dangerous or misleading statement. To cost less and to do 
more is the cry of every promoter of a quack nostrum in finance 
and in medicine, as well as in education. It was such arguments 
as this that sustained the tremendous greenback heresy and the 
tremendous silver heresy which came near to overthrowing for a 
time the financial soundness of our country. In De Witt Clinton's 
days there was a sample of a cost-less and do-more nostrum in 
education that should have served as a warning to New York 
for all future generations. Because, as he argued, it would cost 
less and do more, he induced the Public School Society of New 
York, in 1805, to adopt the Lancasterian System of public edu- 
cation. The evil effects of that cheap and inefficienf system 
marked the schools of New York for three-quarters of a century. 
Indeed, they are not yet entirely obliterated. I would suggest, 
Sir, that you read carefully the educational speeches of De Witt 
Clinton and study their consequences, before you strive to emulate 
his memorable educational reputation by championing the "adop- 
tion" of a scheme of public teaching that has as yet, so far as 
New York City is concerned, nothing to recommend it but the 
claims of its advocates that it will "cost less" and "do more." 

On the other hand, I stand by the doctrine that the established 
order of public education, notwithstanding many failings, has 
behind it a noble record, has steadily raised the level of human 



50 

intelligence and efficiency, is not only the melting-pot of the races 
that flock to us from all parts of the globe, but is our strongest 
bulwark against corruption, disloyalty, and disorder. Standing 
on this platform, I take the ground that every new theory of 
education must be fully tried and tested before being adopted. 
That is what I advised the Board of Education to do with regard 
to the Gary school plan — experiment with it fully and under the 
most favorable conditions, test it thoroughly, and adopt it only 
if it makes good the claims of its advocates. In the meantime, 
the burden of proof that it costs less and does more, evidently 
rests, not upon the supporters of the established order, but upon 
the advocates of the innovation. 

You then proceed : "Your opposition to the duplicate plan, as 
I understand it, is based upon the assumption or fear that it will 
have an unfortunate effect upon education in academic subjects. 
When, however, I protest that you have produced no facts in 
support of your opposition, you specify the following". (You 
then enumerate certain school buildings which I have claimed 
should be erected before further attempts are made to extend 
the Gary experiment.) Is not this an attempt to escape your 
opponent's argument by shifting your position? I brought for- 
ward the facts in question not, as you now say, in opposition 
to the Gary plan, but in reply to the following statement found 
in your letter of 9th July: "Neither in your letter to Governor 
Whitman nor in your correspondence with me have you produced 
a single fact or a single definite concrete argument in support of 
your opposition to the extension of the advantages", etc. My 
contention was addressed to showing (1) that I had produced 
facts, and (2) that I had produced a valid argument, not against 
the adoption, but against the extension of the Gary experiment. 
My argument against the extension of an experiment you now 
try to set aside by asserting that it was an argument in opposi- 
tion to the duplicate school plan in se. Is this quite fair, Mr. 
President ? 



51 

With regard to your criticism of the facts I cited, I have the 
following remarks to make : 

First: In the three localities in The Bronx, to which I re- 
ferred, school buildings are urgently needed, in addition to the 
two buildings for which you say provision has already been made. 

Second : If provision has been made for a new building for 
Public School 54, Brooklyn, money should not be expended for 
Garyizing Public School 157, Brooklyn. 

Third: Public School 118, Brooklyn, should not be spoiled 
as a school for girls in order to accommodate boys who are 
already receiving full-time instruction in a neighboring school. 

Fourth : The provision which you claim has been made "for 
increasing high school accommodations — $1,300,000 appropriated 
during the past two years", and, I would add, very little of it 
spent — is utterly inadequate. By the way, that amount included 
an item of a quarter of a million dollars to be expended in con- 
verting an old elementary building into a high school for the 
Julia Richman High .School, — one of the most absurd and extra- 
vagant propositions that ever emanated from the Comptroller's 
office, (so I am informed) — which has since been abandoned. 

I still claim that to attempt to teach nearly 70,000 high school 
students in less than 40,000 sittings is a disgrace to the metropolis 
of America and does a great wrong to successive generations of 
students. 

I have never claimed that these facts have any*' "bearing upon 
the principle of the duplicate school." I have claimed and do 
claim that they are more necessary than to spend the people's 
money in extending a doubtful experiment. 

You continue: "I do not think that the Board of Superin- 
tendents is opposed to the principle of the duplicate school; on 
the contrary, I believe that a majority, if not all, of the Associate 
Superintendents, approve and believe in a duplicate plan of 
organization." 



52 

In making this assertion, you seem to ignore the fact that, on 
25th April, 1916, the Board of Superintendents adopted a reso- 
lution stating that "It is not committed to a duplicate plan as the 
best form of school organization." "The fundamental question 
at issue is," you state, "whether such a school should be used for 
only thirty classes (referring to one of the plans of which you 
have spoken), half of the school plant remaining vacant while 
the other half is occupied, or whether all departments of the 
school should be used during the entire school day." You state 
what is clearly an impossible case. In no school building is ;\ 
plant used for only thirty classes, half the school plant remaining 
vacant while the other half is occupied. Whatever else may be, 
that is certainly not the question involved. 

You speak of my "opposition" to the Washington Irving High 
School. In this statement you are again mistaken. I suggested 
and devised the school. From the start, I did everything in my 
power to promote its best interests. I challenge you to produce 
any act of mine that can honestly be construed as opposition 
to the school. 

I regret to find that I must again refresh your memory in 
quoting from what I must still regard as a "private" conversation 
about the Washington Irving High School. I never said that 
"the results of that school were a tragedy." I did use words to 
the effect that the history of the school was marked all along by 
the tragedies of young women who had found their high hopes in 
life blighted because the school had not fulfilled what its former 
principal promised. 

You expend great effort in trying to refute my statement that 
the school had, for many years, enjoyed the "melancholy dis- 
tinction" of being recorded during many years "as the high 
school deserted by the largest number of its students each year 
before graduating." The statement you have expended so much 
labor to refute is not the statement which I made. 

I am amazed to find that you, as President of the Board of 



53 

Education, make a wholesale onslaught on the work of the public 
schools, founded upon no better evidence than "a letter from the 
vice-president of an important industrial corporation" and "a 
report" "received from one of the leading banks", regarding a 
spelling test given to a single boy. Edmund Burke well said that 
one cannot frame an indictment against a nation. No more can 
you frame, on such evidence, an indictment against the largest 
single public school system in the world. Small politicians and 
disappointed business-men have occasionally tried their hands 'it 
framing such an indictment, only to excite the scorn of exper- 
ienced teachers and the ridicule of the great mass of well satisfied 
parents. For myself, I do not consider it necessary at tne present 
time to enter into any elaborate defense of the public schools. 
They are good schools and there is abundant evidence that 
parents are well satisfied with them. They would be still better 
schools and cause much greater satisfaction if the Board of 
Estimate and Apportionment would give the money to build new 
school buildings when such buildings are needed, and afford such 
accommodations as would enable us to reduce to reasonable 
proportions the oversized classes that obstruct the progress ot 
pupils and break the health and the hearts of numbers of con- 
scientious teachers. 

You say that, in opposition "to the judgment of a large 
majority of the members of the Board of Education" and in 
opposition to the "unanimous opinion" of certain principals, 
teachers, and superintendents who have tried the Gary plan "you 
ask me (you) to accept your individual opinion supported by 
neither evidence nor arguments which could be seriously enter- 
tained by any impartial judge." 

In the first place, I have good reason to believe that you have 
been misled by your advisers as to the unanimity of opinion in 
favor of the Gary plan among those who have tried it, either 
inside or outside of this city. 

In the second place, you quote the favorable opinions of other 



54 ■ 

superintendents in other cities where the Gary plan is being tried. 
There is no evidence that these opinions are founded on sufficient 
trial and careful investigation. 

In the third place, you have quoted nothing from the school 
officers in the cities where the Gary plan has been tried, found 
wanting, and rejected. 

As a comment upon your statement that my letters present 
neither evidence nor arguments, I beg leave to reiterate the 
reasons why I am strongly of opinion that the Gary innovation 
should not be carried farther until it has demonstrated that it 
will not injure our children: 

1. The Gary or duplicate school plan is very similar to, 
though more elaborate than the double-sessions plan which 
we have been forced to adopt for several years in this city, 
because of lack of sufficient accommodations. Practically 
all of our high schools are now double-session schools. In 
the State examinations which all our high schools, except, in 
part, the commercial high schools, are required to take, we 
have periodically recurring tests of progress or retrogression. 
In, I believe, every instance in which double sessions are 
found in a high school, the school began to show deterioration 
as soon as the double sessions were introduced. This state- 
ment is as true of the strongest of our high schools as of the 
comparatively weak. We may reasonably argue from 
analogy that the introduction of the duplicate school plan — 
not different in principle from the double-session plan — will 
have a similar injurious effect on the fundamental studies 
in an elementary school. 

2. A most careful and scientific investigation made under 
my direction in 1915 showed (1) that, in the so-called 
Gary schools, the pupils did not make as rapid progress in 
the fundamental studies as in an equal number of the 
traditional schools; (2) that the number of over-age children 



55 

increases more rapidly in the Gary schools than in the 
traditional schools; (3) that the children leave school more 
frequently from the higher grades in the Gary schools than 
in the traditional schools ; and (4) that it costs the city more 
to educate a child in a Gary or duplicate school than in a 
traditional school. 

3. The results of the investigation of 1915 were con- 
firmed and supported by a separate and independent examina- 
tion made by a committee of district superintendents in 1916. 

4. Progress in the fundamental branches, which I regard 
as reading, writing, grammar, penmanship, drawing, history 
and government, and geography, is the supreme test of every 
elementary school. Other matters are important; these are 
essential. 

5. As I pointed out in my last letter, under the Gary 
plan pupils frequently come to their class work when bored 
by tedious auditorium exercises or tired physically by directed 
play. 

As you well know, I do not regard these considerations *as 
conclusive, because the Gary innovation has not been sufficiently 
long on trial. They raise, however, a strong presumption against 
the innovation and are certainly sufficient to call a halt on extend- 
ing the experiment until we know its effects better. 

In the conclusion of your letter you say : "In announcing your 
judgment in advance, you have obviously disqualified yourself to 
command confidence in the fairness or impartiality of any investi- 
gation conducted by you." The most charitable view of this 
assertion is that it was written, not by you, but by one of your 
numerous advisers and accepted by you without sufficient con- 
sideration. As you have issued it over your signature, however, 



56 

1 have no choice but to regard it as yours. You know that I 
have not pronounced final judgment against the duplicate school 
plan. 

Respectfully yours, 

Wm. H. Maxwell, 

Superintendent of Schools. 

Hon. William G. Willcox, 

President of the Board of Education. 



57 

BOARD OF EDUCATION 

THE CITY OF NEW YORK 

OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT 

500 PARK AVENUE 

August 8th, 1917 
Dr. William H. Maxwell, 
Superintendent of Schools, 
New York. 

Dear Sir: 

In acknowledging your letter of the 1st instant, permit me to 
say that you apparently misunderstand my criticism of the tone 
of your former communication. Far from wrapping myself in 
"an armor of official dignity", I invite and welcome frank 
criticism when supported by reasonable argument, but your 
attempt to discredit my statements by reflections upon my per- 
sonal qualifications and judgment was considered by members of 
the Board disrespectful not only to the office which I hold, but 
also to the Board of Education. 

With reference to the resolution adopted by the Board bF 
Superintendents April 25th, 1916, to which you refer, I call 
your attention to my letter of May 2nd, 1916, to the Board of 
Superintendents, and Dr. Straubenmuller's reply addressed to me 
three days later, reading as follows: 

"Referring to your letter dated May 2, 1916, relative to a 
duplicate school plan, which was read and discussed at a meeting of 
the Board of Superintendents held on May 2, I take pleasure in 
notifying you that the views expressed by you in this letter coincide 
with the views of the Board of Superintendents". 

I find nothing else in your letter of sufficient importance to 
call for any further comment. 

Very truly yours, 

William G. Willcox, 

President of the Board of Education. 



58 

BOARD OF EDUCATION 

THE CITY OF NEW YORK 

OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT 

500 PARK AVENUE 

May 2, 1916 

To the Board of Superintendents, 
Gentlemen : 

Referring to your communication to the Board of Education 
under date of April 25th, I quite understand, and I believe that 
the other members of the Board understand, that the Board of 
Superintendents "is not committed to a duplicate school plan 
as the best form of school organization. As pointed out by Dr. 
Maxwell in his recent report, however, the duplicate organization 
is by no means a new thing in New York, nearly 100,000 of the 
children in the elementary schools being registered on September 
30, 1915, in double organization classes. 

This plan has been adopted in congested districts in the past, 
not as an ideal plan, but as the best possible arrangement under 
existing conditions. It has been adopted under great disadvan- 
tages, however, in many schools owing to the lack of adequate 
facilities for providing valuable activities for the pupils while not 
engaged in the classrooms. 

The importance of workshops, auditoriums, gymnasiums, 
science laboratories and playgrounds in any form of double or- 
ganization school cannot be questioned. Indeed, the value of such 
facilities in any school is now so generally recognized that it will 
probably be conceded that a well organized duplicate school with 
these advantages is a better school than a single organization 
which lacks such advantages. 

Since there is no possible prospect in New York City of 
enough new buildings to relieve the congested districts without 
continuing and extending some form of double organization, there 
appears to be no room for any difference of opinion as to the 
wisdom of adapting these congested schools to the best possible 



59 

form of double organization by providing suitable and profitable 
accommodation and occupation for the pupils who are not occu- 
pied in the classrooms. 

It is upon this theory that the Board of Education is pro- 
posing such physical alterations and additions as shall fit these 
congested schools for the best possible form of double organiza- 
tion. In proposing such physical changes, however, the Board of 
Education is not committing itself in regard to ' the form of 
duplicate organization or administration to be adopted; on the 
contrary, it is entirely free to approve and adopt such form of 
organization as the Board of Superintendents shall find best 
adapted to the needs and conditions of New York. 

Am I not correct in thinking that the Board of Superinten- 
dents is entirely in accord with these views and this programme? 

Yours very truly, 

William G. Willcox, 

President, Board of Education. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS^ 

llllHIlllllr 

020 975 032 6 




